Growing Up in U-Haul: Stuart Shoen

March 23, 2015

The words “family business” mean something here at U-Haul International. The 70-year-old company still runs on the core family values that the business was built on in 1945. Current Executive Vice President Stuart Shoen can attest to that. Stuart Shoen is the grandson of L.S. Shoen, the founder of the company and one of the early pioneers of the moving industry.

“Growing up in the U-Haul family was, if I had to think of one word, it was a singular experience.”

As the company grew, Stuart grew with it. In the video below, Stuarts talks about his journey at U-Haul.

Growing up in the company meant traveling and visiting U-Haul locations all over the country. As a child, Stuart and his brother Sam traveled with Joe Shoen to hundreds, maybe even thousands of U-Haul locations. When asked about his favorite locations, Stuart says it’s impossible to just pick one. Locations in these cities were some among those mentioned: San Francisco, Oakland, Chelsea, Manhattan, LBJ, Charleston, Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago.

“We would fly around to places and brother and I would get the plane ready for the next flight while Joe was out at a location. He’d come back 45 minutes later and we needed to be fueled, the plane had to be reset and ready to go.”

Stuart’s job then was to make sure the plane is ready to go. Years later after holding many different positions in the company, including positions in the Tech Center, out in the field and at the headquarters in Phoenix, Stuart is the EVP of the company. His first job at U-Haul was delivering mail within the corporate towers. Stuart has come a long way since his days in the mail room and so has U-Haul.